“I don’t want to go to war for Hitler, I’ll admit it, but I don’t want to go against him, for the Jews,” Louis-Ferdinand Céline ranted in 1937. He turned his attention to the French prime minister, Léon Blum: “I’d prefer a dozen Hitlers to one all-powerful Blum. Hitler, at least, I could understand, while with Blum it’s pointless, he’ll always be the worst enemy, absolute hatred, to the death.”

Such vile lines—there were many others—cast a dark shadow over a man who, in a universe devoid of context, would have been celebrated as one of the greatest French writers of the twentieth century, second, perhaps, only to Proust. After the war, he had to flee Paris—where, after the fall of the Vichy regime, he was tried in absentia as a collaborator with the Nazis—and hide out in Denmark until he was pardoned in 1951. Even death put no end to Céline’s shame: Just this week, Jewish community activists successfully petitioned culture minister Frederic Mitterrand to remove Céline’s name from an annual list honoring major figures in French history.

“I don’t want to go to war for Hitler, I’ll admit it, but I don’t want to go against him, for the Jews,” Louis-Ferdinand Céline ranted in 1937. He turned his attention to the French prime minister, Léon Blum: “I’d prefer a dozen Hitlers to one all-powerful Blum. Hitler, at least, I could understand, while with Blum it’s pointless, he’ll always be the worst enemy, absolute hatred, to the death.”

Such vile lines—there were many others—cast a dark shadow over a man who, in a universe devoid of context, would have been celebrated as one of the greatest French writers of the twentieth century, second, perhaps, only to Proust. After the war, he had to flee Paris—where, after the fall of the Vichy regime, he was tried in absentia as a collaborator with the Nazis—and hide out in Denmark until he was pardoned in 1951. Even death put no end to Céline’s shame: Just this week, Jewish community activists successfully petitioned culture minister Frederic Mitterrand to remove Céline’s name from an annual list honoring major figures in French history.